Deleted scenes have always fascinated me. Some of them are totally useless, while others would’ve made for interesting additions. We focus on the latter scenes in Deleted Screams.

Directed by Samuel Bayer, the 2010 version of A Nightmare on Elm Street is, as the kids say these days, a trash fire. Lifelessly going through the motions of Wes Craven’s original classic (now with terrible CGI!), it’s easily the worst franchise remake we’ve yet seen, and it didn’t help that Jackie Earle Haley’s incarnation of the iconic slasher villain was, well, seriously sad looking.

But as bad as it may be, there is actually some good in Elm Street 2010.

My personal favorite aspect of the film is a scene that calls Freddy’s guilt into question. At one point, it’s suggested that Krueger, the groundskeeper of Springwood’s elementary school, maybe *didn’t* actually commit the crimes against children that resulted in him being burned alive by the town’s protective parents. The suggestion added a new layer to the mythology of the character, teasing the idea that the remake was going to turn Freddy into something of a sympathetic villain. And when you think about it, being accused of and killed for a horrible crime he didn’t actually commit makes Freddy’s afterlife murder spree make even more sense. Even if you didn’t like the idea, you have to admit that it was at least the most innovative in the remake.

Alas, the film totally wasted that interesting burst of freshness. Rather than even playing with the idea for a little while, it was quickly thrown out the window. Fred was guilty, we soon learn.

The alternate opening, exclusively available on the Blu-ray release, leans into this idea of giving some sympathy to the devil, so to speak. This original opening was to show us something we had never seen before: a near-death Freddy taking his last breaths in the hospital, after being burned by the Springwood parents. All previous iterations of Krueger’s origin story, including the remake’s finished product, had Freddy dying in the location where he was set on fire, so seeing him flatline in a hospital bed, his burns heavily bandaged, was something new.

This hospital opening, combined with the “he’s innocent” premise and Freddy’s more realistic, almost tragic makeup could’ve made Nightmare on Elm Street‘s remake into, at the very least, its own thing. Starting the film off with a burnt up Freddy dying in the hospital was an interesting idea, if nothing more – one of a few interesting ideas (like the micro-naps) that the film squanders.

Check out the alternate intro below and check back soon for more Deleted Screams.